MaxForce Revolution GTX Desktop Review

If you're in the market for a more-than-capable PC with good gaming muscle, MaxForce PC's Revolution GTX is worth a look. This $1,497 computer is not an extreme gamer like the iBuypower Gamer Paladin 795-CX or other boutique rigs, but it will get you there, bring you back, and keep you smiling in both directions.

There are two keys to the Revolution GTX's prowess. The first is a 3GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 processor, which the hardware geeks at MaxForce have overclocked to 3.6GHz (it turned in an excellent 9,595 result on PCMark05). The second is a huge Cooler Master heat sink with a horizontally mounted 120mm fan that keeps it cool; after three days of 24/7 operation, it didn't burp once.

MaxForce unlocks the gaming arena for you with an nVidia 9800 GTX graphics card by eVGA. This is the SSC model with 512MB of DDR3 onboard, and the GPU is clocked at 770MHz. It's the fastest of eVGA's three GeForce 9800-based cards, and it gave us 3DMark06 DirectX 9 (DX9) scores of 14,387 at 1,280x1,024 resolution; 12,088 at 1,600x1,200; and 8,456 at 2,560x1,600—not the fastest results we've ever achieved, but they're impressive for a system in the Revolution's class.

In the world of DX10 gaming, we found the Revolution best suited to 1280x1024 venues. At that resolution, frame rates on our demanding tests were very playable: 34fps in World in Conflict, 30.4fps in Call of Juarez, 57.8fps in Company of Heroes, and 46.7fps in Supreme Commander. Those titles were still decently playable at 1600x1200, although there was a little bit of visual stuttering. The only thing that survived when we pumped the resolution up to 2500x1600, however, was Supreme Commander, which held up at 38fps.

If you want more, you can always order up the Revolution with a second 9800 GTX—just remember that having two of these wide-load graphics cards on the Gigabyte GA-EX38-DQ6 motherboard will leave you with only one PCI and one PCI Express x1 slot available. (If you're looking for extreme gaming, MaxForce can supply you with a motherboard that will hold three of these brutes—and the cards themselves. It'll just cost you more.)

Between the back panel and the top of the spacious Cooler Master CM-690 midtower case, you'll find 10 USB ports and a pair of FireWire ports. We'd probably opt for a second Western Digital 640GB SATA 3.0GBs hard drive, and there's plenty of expansion room inside the case—ten bays in total, split evenly between those for external 5.25-inch and internal 3.5-inch drives.

If you're skittish about buying a PC from a company you know little about, we have reviewed another of its computers, the Photon XLX, late last year. Back then, the company was called Solaris Computer Systems, but the company assures us that although the name has changed, their mission is still the same: Helping users configure amazing computers at affordable prices. So far, we've seen no reason to doubt that the company is living up to that credo.